


Of Kantian Ethics, Pants, Love, and Computers [i.e. Lestat actually behaves himself for once while Louis doesn't]

by orphan_account



Series: The Various Scattered Journals of L.L. [2]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Author may get titles mixed up because doofness, F/M, Ignores Blood Communion (again), Lestat talking a lot (that's not new), Louis and internet addiction, Louis responds [sort of], M/M, Rated T because mentions of bloodsharing and swearing, Some canon sassing, Somewhat of a continuation but not really, Sort of not cute but cute, The sisterhood of the travelling pants, Vampire fixations, somewhat melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lestat just wants to shag; Louis accidentally falls in love online, the internet is the devil, and God forbid anyone bring philosophy into the mix [but of course they do].





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _The editors at Renaud's Editing LLC in Gentilly note that they received this piece anonymously, with no indication of where it came from._   
>  _They would like to emphasize no ownership of the characters herein, no profit prior to and post submission to yours truly._

‘I can always tell when Louis has a fascination.’

‘ _”A fascination?”_ ’ you might say. ’ _”What’s that?”_ ’

‘If Louis were human the answer would be quite simple; because by my standards, human fascinations are simple. And you musn’t take that as an insult; merely as a recognition of the brevity with which a human can give their attention to something. In this day and age it’s… _mon dieu_ , maybe, seventy-five, eighty years? That is, and forgive me for saying so, a very terribly short amount of time. But if I must be ubiquitous with my musings; if Louis were human, he would perhaps have a fascination with the process of running a plantation. And see, he does glare at me when I declare such a thing because that was what he was doing in the first place and I very properly spoiled it for him. I will point out that if I had not intervened he wouldn’t have lived long enough to see the true fruits of his effort but Louis doesn't care about that, it’s the principle of thing.’

‘Vampire fascinations are different.’

‘They are very different, and almost always dangerous; because vampires often develop fascinations with these fleshy, blood filled beings called humans. Usually, such obsessions end up being very tasty or very tragic. Oh, why not, sometimes they can be both or neither; and sometimes they can go all the way ‘round and become something wonderful but most of the time they are disastrous. Humans, you see, are like fruit. For a time they are ripe, warm, and full of promise; but when you leave them be in order to appreciate their beauty...to let it mature...they wither. In my considerably advanced age I would declare that they wither at rates that grow significantly faster every year.’

‘That does not, of course, keep us from developing such interests. David would be a prime example of a terrible decision that-in the end-only worked out through his own determination and perseverance. Nicki, of course we have my poor Nicki, went mad; so mad that I could not find him in Heaven or Hell and I think I can safely say that that is quite a feat. Humans cannot, no matter how much they would like to say otherwise, grasp the concept of immortality. I should not have to say this, but there are times when vampires struggle with the concept of immortality. Marius has likened it to the idealism of infinity; theorism and practicality are not the same thing. And I don’t like to agree with Marius, but in this case he is unfailingly correct.’

‘Thus is the conundrum of the Change; because we can offer the Change but we cannot truly offer the actual concept of the reality of the Change in a way that is comprehensible to the human mind. This is why my initial treatment of Louis was so flagrantly dismissive; I disregarded his inability to comprehend what I was offering him. I can-and do, on occasion-hide behind the colloquialism of that _’one Great Love’_ , and I do not deny that Love...not at all...but it does not dismiss my transgression against him. The swiftly offered Change is a terrible sin with no price that can assuage it; I say that not on a religious scale, but on an ethical scale. And I...I was not so old...but I knew, I knew what it felt like...to have no real choice.’

‘My point in all this is to bemoan the fact that vampire-human fascinations can be deeply passionate, obsessive even, but they never end well. You may point out the theoretical flaws in my reasoning, such as a human being brought over to the Night. Once, I considered that a great victory; an acceptance of a connection to usurp all prior connections. What greater friendship, what greater love than to accept the embrace of death...and thereafter...eternity? I have my Louis, after all, because I loved him so deeply I wanted to keep him forever. But look at the path that brought us here...look at the pain...the sorrow. I didn’t do it properly; I don’t think anyone does it properly and we still have plenty of time- _forever really_ -to allow this to fall down around us once more. You see, when you have eternity, you also have the continuity of perpetual uncertainty. That is the terrible, terrible vice of being unable to die.’

‘I must stop this philosophical, melancholy talk or I fear Louis shall rip my clothes asunder in his terrible excitement.’

‘You might remember when Babbage invented the computer. Or you might not, I forget myself; and there are those who argue that perhaps the abacus was the first computer but for the sake of specificity we will stick with Babbage. Louis was rather tyrannically opposed to it in a manner bordering on hysteria. We are not talking about my hysteria, of course; more the _Du Lac_ brand of hysteria that comes in the form of sleeping late and reading _’With Folded Hands’_ in a very public and conspicuous way. Only Louis can make the art of reading look ferocious, and not simply because he is a vampire. Non, _mon petit chou_ expresses his fury with a kind of voracious turning of page; and so he did with the Analytical Engine. This was-of course-directly before things went quite sour between us, so I cannot tell you why or when exactly or in what manner he got over his terrible phobia of electronic processors. However, it is relevant to note that Louis was and is very resistant to the evolution of technology and there isn’t much to do about it but let him work through it himself.’

‘I am of two minds regarding the internet.’

‘For one, it makes things easier to look up, but then you might read articles on the internet stating that it is unreliable.I found this, maybe a decade ago, so funny I could not use the internet with any form of seriousness because anything that declares itself unreliable while in use is surely subpar in true quality. It is, rather, like hiring a butler only to have them arrive and declare that they are the most dreadful butler you could ever have dreamed of hiring, but if you give them the right orders then they might do an acceptable job or they might poison you for having poor taste. As such, you have the internet; with all its glorious content, the terrible truth that the content may not do you a whit of good at all, and, of course, viruses.’

‘Louis, unsurprisingly, hated the internet.’

‘We weren’t together at the time, but I learnt of it later and was deeply unsurprised and even more deeply unimpressed. I won’t start on the topic of e-books, because I fear that in his distress, Louis might break the computer upon which I write this journal. Needless to say, the idea of turning his precious, leather-bound books into flat-screened, LED-illuminated scriptology was so horrifying he threw out our TV and the telephones. It was quite a battle preventing him from cutting the electricity entirely and reverting to candles. It took me a year to convince him to let me buy a new flatscreen. This is no small feat because, despite his technological misgivings, Louis is rather desperately fond of television and for him to miss an entire years’ worth of his favorite shows was quite the statement indeed. Instead of going to the cinema we went to the theatre and it was dreadful compared to how theatre used to be. But of course I suffered for my Louis...this terrible year of entertainment related brevity. And perhaps it did us good because that was the first year we kissed. Properly, I mean; with lots of tongue...and of course kissing leads to fucking.'

'That, however, is a story for another night.'

'I bought another TV-a better one of course; they come out with better ones faster than you can blink-and we watched a whole awful season of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Don't ask me why, because I couldn't tell you; only Louis got it in his head-and I suppose it was to some great morbid offense regarding the idealism of so many people sharing the same garment-to find some moral lesson out of it. This was much after it came out, you see and it was a late night marathon. We were lying on the couch, having ended season one and started season two, and I was trying to get him to abandon the whole damn thing so we could get on with shagging. My mouth was busy with his fingertips but I couldn't entice a lick of excitement out of him because he was too busy attempting to find philosophy in womanhood and unflattering jeans.'

'I don't talk about how pretty Louis is all the time, even when he is being incurably stubborn, because if I did I would never be able to stop. But he is, really, quite the magnificent cut of masculinity, down to whatever awful rags he decides to wear during the evening, and sometimes it’s a bit unfair. That night was no different except he was wearing one of those off the shoulder T-shirts; the monogrammed type that I suppose is working into something hipster but doesn't quite get past some sort of statement in grunge. Really, I don't know if it was supposed to be off the shoulder or if he'd just sat upon it in his distraction but it was riding down just enough that I could see the glorious delineation of his collarbone. All that creamy, alabaster skin stretched across his frame up until the graceful curve of his neck. There was a lock of hair there; and he'd left it long tonight; long enough that it was a river of onyx over his jugular and surely he was teasing me on purpose because I wanted to bite him.'

'...We're creatures of impulse, you see, and Louis is so very good at strangulating my self control without batting an eye.'

‘Worrying his lip-a sure sign that something was niggling at him-enough that just the tip of a fang was showing; glinting in the low light and suddenly my tongue was very hungry to slide itself across that, too. At this point, I was fairly close to whinging at him, and I didn’t want to do that because that was rather like saying he’d pulled one up on me and I couldn’t stand the thought of him being inwardly smug about it. This, too, was an irrational thought because Louis is not mentally competitive but it’s never been something I could control and he has been-quite eternally-gracious enough to forgive me my eternal paranoia. I ended up going for something much more painfully obvious; meaning that I put my hand on his crotch and squeezed until he yelped with something that was half-indignance and half a shadow of the pain the mortal he once was would have felt had he still had an ounce of humanity left in his body. Instinctive...the urge to protect one’s reproductive facets I suppose. Not that they did us much good unless we’d gorged ourselves but that was neither here nor there.’

‘“ _Sérieusement_ Lestat” was the dry but ever-so-polite response.’

‘A sigh, really, exasperated in nature...just a hint of warning as long fingers pushed mine away. They were just on the edge of warm; not truly, but with the impression of it. I suppose I should have been ecstatic that he didn’t blush with the action; we’d been together a while by then, out of mutual agreement which was frankly, shocking. Oh, _oui_ , there was the opportunity, after Atlantis, to rule. I very nearly did...so very nearly. But _how boring_ is all that kept scrambling around in my brain. How droll, how very unsettling and how unsatisfactory. Why in heaven’s name would I want to keep track of so many vampires when I’d spent most of my existence doing a piss-poor job of taking care of myself and those dear to me? Why would I want to do that when once every few centuries one or several of us were prone to dramatic and terrible meltdowns and mental catastrophe?? _Recompense_ I suppose would be the answer to that; some unnamed dark and itchy debt that I felt obligated to pay; but I have never been steadfast in my aims and I wasn’t about to start.’

‘Louis would be a far better leader.’

‘Powers, abilities, all that aside; Louis is far more temperate than me, far more patient, and-dare I say it-perhaps slightly smarter when it comes to governance. And I don’t flatter him by saying this because in that smartness he can be rather intolerable but it goes a long way to say that when it comes to monarchial qualifications...well...I just couldn’t do it. A rebellion, I suppose, against the concept of a deadened emotional nature. I was fairly sick of it at that point; and maybe it would make eternity more tolerable...distancing myself from such humanity...but was it worth it? _Mince,_ I still don’t have the answer to that question, I don’t know if I want to have the answer. But I have Louis. Rather abruptly, I had Louis, because when I came home from Stockholm to my fair city he showed up on my porch and demanded to move in.’

‘Louis _demanded!_ ’

‘I’d very recently woken-you must understand that for Louis to wake before me is quite a feat-and I didn’t know if I was staying, but there he was, and I thought perhaps I had fallen into some glorious delirium because he was so adamant about it-though of course only in the soft-spoken, terribly articulate manner that Louis can be adamant-and I surely didn’t know what to do with myself. I think I said something rather stupid, because I know we fought after that, and he went away for a few nights. Really, he went away for a month I believe, and by the time it was all over I’d chased him down and told him that he had better get his books because if we were going to do this, he would need them. It was difficult, initially, getting everyone to leave us alone. We had so much talking to do that there was no possible way we could do it with interruptions. And again, I didn’t know if I would make permanent residence there, or perhaps I’d move away. I hadn't decided yet, on the whole 'Nosferatu King' concept. I am really rather vain inside and the idea of a crown-even if metaphorical-doesn't come without its egotistical hangups.'

'They say it's the old blood.'

'If vampirism came with a rule book it would say something along the lines of: _'with great power comes great responsibility, emotional eunuchism, and perhaps a drastic change in individual characterization.'_ I say, _va te faire foutre_ to that. And-because I am patriotically minded and very much in love with America, I will tell you, dear reader, that that means I am telling such a concept to go fuck itself. Delicious. Louis, of course, looks rather horrified but, as I have said before, hysteria is just another scope of his permanent existence. And now he has left the room, which is all well and good because as I delve further into this account he would surely only be more agitated by it.'

'So, Louis came to live with me, and it was about as wonderful and terrible as you might imagine it to be. Really, it was not much better than when we lived with David, only David was no longer there to act as a mediator, if you could even call him that. We didn't stay at the old house; that was Louis's idea; start over new. Not particularly new, just a different house; more privacy, same architecture really, same city. I shan't tell you where because I think you can picture the general makeup of it fairly well on your own and if I start I won't stop until I've told you everything down to the last stitch of upholstery. That was something we fought about, now that I think about it; upholstery I mean. And it wasn't so much that we fought about it as it was the fact that Louis did not care a whit about the upholstery and for some reason this upset me. You'd think that him telling me _'do whatever you like, chèri'_ would be a cause for celebration, but apparently for me it was a sign that he was secretly non-committal.'

'And so we fought.'

'We fought and for some reason neither of us ended up gallivanting into the night in a fit of pique. I don't know if it was because we were bound and determined to thrash it all out there and then or if we both simply didn't have the energy to leave. Atlantis...you see...all that adventuring can make you want to stay somewhere for a while and perhaps not shriek your way into oblivion simply because your lover does not care if the drapes are velvet or suede. I think at some point perhaps we abruptly realized we had nothing left to fight over. Maybe it was when Louis decided that he would prefer to kiss me than go another round regarding what TV channel we would watch; or maybe it was when I was trying to get him to decide on a paint swatch for the parlor and I realized I would really rather doff his clothes than hear about whether he liked 'Royal Red' or 'Billiard Green' better.'

'Because you cannot find a shade of anything quite so lovely as my Louis's eyes.'

‘We’ve touched on the more somber subjects, of course; Rue Royal...our respective moments of suicidal inclination. I won’t speak of that here. Contrary to my bearing, I am quite painfully aware that there are conversations that should not go on between more than two people. I have, briefly, expounded on the prior subjects before, and the dialogue behind them...I do not think I will do so again. I do enjoy talking; I think perhaps that I do so much talking that I appear to trample over the emotional needs of those close to me. Louis has returned to regard me from the doorway, and I wonder how much...and to what degree I have irreversibly damaged him with my inability to be circumspect. Quite a lot, I suppose.’

‘Again...I wander far afield.’

‘We were on the couch and I had previously assaulted Louis’s manhood; and it was entirely his fault for being so attractive and failing to pay attention to me. On the screen before us, Lena was discovering the great horrors of _l’amore_ by way of Kostas informing her of his impromptu engagement and his girlfriend’s abrupt and suspiciously convenient pregnancy. If I were to be completely honest-which I shall strive to in this account-I hated the show with a vengeance that bordered on the frenetic. It was, to put it plainly, rather seedy and probably didn’t measure up to the books in any way, shape or form. But I’d have rather eaten my whole head than told Louis that there were books because then his fixation would have lasted not a few, tawdry nights but several months as he read them first with vampiric speed and then with that careful, considering dutifulness that makes me want to rip my fangs out.’

‘“Do you think such friendship merits such extensive backstory?’” Louis asked suddenly.’

‘I frowned, because really, I did not care for the lot of them or the reasoning behind their mercurial dedication to one another and a pair of supposedly mystical pants. Really the only thing I cared about was getting Louis _out_ of his pants, which he seemed quite determined to keep on, much to my chagrin. Nevertheless, I knew better at that point then to go off on him regarding it because that would surely close his proverbial pearly gates for an indefinite amount of time. I do learn, you see, regarding Louis and his penchant for wanting to be listened to; even if he wants to be listened to in question of topics that matter not at all.’

‘“I don’t know, _chèr_ ” I sighed, rubbing his thigh in a rather pointed manner. “You know how terrible I am with women, how could I possibly determine something even close to the inner workings of…” I waved an idle hand. “All this? _Va savoir pourquoi_ , you are the scholar, non?”

 _’This_ got his attention.’

Really, he fixed me with a look that was one part tender amusement and one a kind of distraction that I didn’t really like because it usually meant he was going to run off to one of his books.

‘“Flattery” was the dry commentary as my lover shifted in order to drape one long, gorgeous leg over the other in a positional expression of critique. “I won’t argue the point regarding which of us is the scholar, but that is terrible flattery when we both know it was _you_ who could drive the women to swoon just by batting an eye.”’

‘And, well, I was quite flattered myself and those green eyes might have rolled as I ostentatiously preened. Then, of course, I had to read between the lines.’

‘“What do you mean _’could?’_ ” I demanded. Louis regarded me with an expression of exasperation even as I latched onto the word and dragged myself into the mire of emotionalism with it. “Do you mean that I have lost my charm? Is that why you won’t warm to me tonight _mon ange_?” Just the notion of such a thing was terrible! To think I thought we were getting on so well! It was enough to make me take both his hands and hold them to my chest! “Oh, Louis” I moaned. “You must tell me if I don’t please you properly.”

‘He laughed.’

‘Louis _laughed_ for a good solid minute before he was able to collect himself. And he is beautiful in his mirth, my fledgling. Mostly because it is so rare and so soft and fleeting. But it’s in the way his eyes turn upwards just slightly at the corners; the way he covers his mouth to hide the fact that he is smiling...like somehow a wide smile could be terribly improper. You can see the veins in his wrist when he does that; the ulnar and radial arteries...so dark on his Pieris rapae-pale skin as he lifts his arm in one graceful, concealing movement that should not be so terribly seductive. His eyebrows move too, they lift and slant and become something that is both hilarity and a greatly wonderful expression of polite apology; like anyone could be offended by such a lovely bearing...like somehow he is incorrigible when really he is simply magnificent.’

‘“Lestat” Louis chuckled at length. “Lestat you mustn't say such things.” I must have looked offended because he settled but his smile became something deeply affectionate. “I do love you” he continued. “I do, and you do please me.” He used his free hand-the one that had been covering his pretty mouth-to cup my cheek and kiss my lips. Swiftly, mind you, nothing so deep as to satisfy the hunger within me. And then my Louis stood and declared something that rendered me stupid and speechless;. “I am going to look something up on the internet.”’

‘I was floored.’

‘That is putting it mildly because I was so gobsmacked that even my raging vampiric libido didn’t jump to stop him in his endeavors. Maybe I should have, because what followed was, to put it plainly, disastrous. But I was too shocked to do anything but stare at the spot he had vacated in a stupid kind of fugue until he returned with a pensive expression and then proceeded to drag me to bed. I suppose that that’s a rather careening avenue of plot progression; to say that one minute I was in complete stupefaction and then in another unceremoniously fucked, but that’s really all that happened. We fell into the usual routine of tearing our clothes off one another and completed a frankly magnificent and crimson-soaked blood circle and then the Sleep came to take us and I didn’t bring it up again until the next evening. I’d gotten my way, after all, and that so rarely happens that I had nothing to do but fall in with it and plunge into a deep well of red delirium. Only a very stupid man contemplates the circumstances in which he finds himself in the arms of someone so very beautiful and insatiable as Louis when he’s in the mood.’

‘“What were you looking up on the internet?’”

I asked him this the next night, when he’d come back from the hunt and was standing in the foyer trying to get a spot of blood off his collar. A rare sight, that; especially now. Louis is not, and has never been, a sloppy drinker. Something must be weighing terribly heavy on his mind for him to be so careless as to let even the least bit spill from his mouth. It’s not even the neatness of the thing; it’s the concept of not taking whatever life he has chosen to snuff out for granted. I am, of course, less circumspect on the moral front but I do like to make a fashion statement from time to time and I don’t like to be messy due to said fashion so I could sympathize in a plasticized manner that was purely centric to vanity. I’d fed earlier and had the thought in my mind to go through Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier; just for the hell of it. One of those urges that just strikes you because you haven’t done it in a while, I’m sure the feeling is familiar.’

‘“Deontological moral theory” was the idle response. When I didn’t reply, Louis lifted his head and raised an onyx brow. “Kantian ethics, you know the spiel by now, I would hope.”’

‘“ _Oui_ , unfortunately”’ I muttered, sidling up next to him and peering at the offending spot over his shoulder. “Just toss the whole thing” I continued, tugging the back of his collar playfully. “It’s not like I can’t buy you another, or several hundred if you fancy it.”

“I don’t fancy it” was the quiet reply as he turned to face me, dark eyelashes brushing pale cheeks before he thumbed my bottom lip in a manner that he really oughtn’t have if he wasn’t going to let me have him right there. “But you have to admit, he has a point regarding motivations.”’

‘I groaned.’

“Oh, let’s not start on the whole _‘moral worth’_ conundrum again” I said pleadingly. “Please, _chéri_ , I don’t think I can stand it so soon after dinner.” Tilting my head, I kissed the tip of his nose. “And what does that have to do with the pants anyway?”

He regarded me solemnly for a moment; drinking me in like he was prone to do before he shook his head.

“I don’t know yet” he replied contemplatively. “But I will spare you such agony until I have an answer.”

‘And then he disappeared.’

‘This was to become a recurring thing, you see; him disappearing. And I don’t mean that in the literal sense, merely in the sense that he went off to sequester himself to the computer again and I was left to play my Beethoven alone. At the time, I didn’t mind it. Vampires are creatures of habit, you see, and solidarity is one of those habits that we cannot go without. Even someone as vivaciously social as yours truly has his moments of antisocial behavior. It is soothing to find solace in oneself, and so that is what I did, and what he did and I did not resent him for it...initially. We kept to ourselves that night, and I was refreshed by my Beethoven and then later a little bit of Mozart and I went to Sleep feeling accomplished despite the fact that I really hadn’t done anything at all.’

‘The next night was the same.’

‘And then the next night after that, and I began to grow irritated and rather horny. Here is where we come back to the subject of fascinations, because Louis did have a fascination, I just didn’t understand what-or who, I should say-it was at the time. He withdrew from me, like he does with his books at times and while I can tolerate his silence and his occasional fits of melancholy I simply cannot bear his absence. And so it was that I asked him, that if he was going to sit himself in front of a screen all night, that he at least do it in the lounge where at least I could look at his lovely face. He acquiesced with great reluctance, and this drew me further into ire because it was as if he did not _want_ to spend time with me. I am very sensitive actually, you see, and for my Louis to not crave my company was so upsetting that I very nearly threw out the laptop just to get him to talk to me, but I did not.’

‘And oh, was it telling.’

‘Telling because Louis was clearly _speaking_ with someone on that dratted thing; and they were making him _laugh_. I don’t speak of idle laughing, but a sort of sensitive, almost pleasurable laughing that made his brows do that thing that they do and he didn’t even bother to cover his mouth and I saw _red_. Because Louis is _my_ Louis no matter how much we might fight and bicker and disagree over the little stupid things he does and no one, _no one_ should be able to draw such an expression from him but me. It was enough that I stopped playing the piano just to watch him type and watch his expressions and that is saying quite a lot because I am rather obsessed with music, perhaps almost as much obsessed with it as I am with my Louis.’

‘“Who are you talking to?’”

‘This came out rather harsher than I intended it, but it had been a fortnight and I was on edge and wary of this invisible person at that point. We were, again, sitting in the lounge and I was rather at a loose end as to what to do with myself. I don’t know if he’d bothered to go out and hunt. By my memory he hadn’t gone out in several nights because all he wanted to do was sit in front of that damnable machine and talk. And I was right there, right there and so very ready to talk to him but he looked at me like my asking was an _affront_. _Mon dieu_ , I very nearly struck him for giving me such a look and something in my eyes must have given him the idea that I was angry because his posture gave way just enough that I could see that he was becoming defensive.’

‘“Someone I met” he replied with some reticence. “Online.” When I did not reply, he continued. “They’re interested in literature, you see, and they contacted me regarding my post-”’

‘“-Your post?” I interrupted, aghast.’

‘“Yes” Louis replied, sounding rather irritated. “I joined a website, on philosophy, and they approached me regarding Kant and we got to talking.”’

‘“That’s quite a lot of talking” I remarked dryly. “Louis, I am feeling positively neglected.”’

‘For a moment, he almost looked guilty. Because we knew it was true, but we also knew that I had no place saying so. I had, effectively, neglected him from the moment he was made up until not very long ago, and for me to declare myself lonely was possibly the worst hypocrisy that could ever come out of my wretched mouth.’

‘“We got the idea to do a study” my Louis continued as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘“And the research will take a bit of time.”’

‘“And time is all we have”’ I finished nastily, unable to keep jealousy from coloring my tone. ‘“Tell me, _chéri_ , is this...fellow student of yours human?”’ His eyes slid away and I already knew the answer. “Oh, Louis” I said, more gently this time. “This can’t end well, it never does.”

‘That got a reaction.’

‘It got quite an enthusiastic reaction, for Louis I mean. And by that I mean that he stood up and shut his laptop and began to walk out of the room.’

‘“Louie” I said finally, my voice tight...and he paused, his back to me...the tension in his shoulders palatable. And I knew I had to say what I had to say, but I also knew it would hurt him. “You know...where to find me...when this...ends.”’

‘Only it didn’t end.’

‘Not right away anyway. I will go so far as to say that I thought perhaps it would never end and by the end of the year I was halfway to convinced that Louis was going to Turn whoever it was at some point. Because he was right obsessed; and I’ve never seen him obsessed, not like that, anyway. He left me there in the parlor, and it was rather like he put us on pause; or stop...something like that. I’d hurt him, and I knew it, but we lived together and I was, contrary to popular belief, somewhat more mature in my bearings than I had been, so I let it go on because what else could I do? Find out who it was and travel across the world to sink my teeth into their throat so they would stop taking my love’s attention away? He’d never have forgiven me that; I would never forgive myself that. And I wouldn’t do it for him, _non_ , I wouldn’t pull a Claudia on him ever again and so I was left to fester as he descended into a deep well of theocratic speculation and a kind of off-color, human infested metaphorical romance.’

‘And make no mistake, it was a romance.’

‘Different, I think, from mortal-mortal romances; because obviously vampires don’t perform that way unless we’re quite heavily fed and even then there’s too much of a risk for the thirst to rise up in the throes of it when you involve partners with a limited expiration date. No, it was a mental romance, and, perhaps unfortunately, mental romances are far more heady and inveigling than physical romances. This was especially true for Louis, because I do not think he does anything at all without using his brain. We’d never discussed fidelity. Really, I had outright rejected the concept of fidelity the one time he brought it up; many, many years ago and now it was coming back to ‘bite me in the arse’, as David might say. Because Louis was flagrantly and monstrously having an emotional affair with a faceless stranger.’

‘Or maybe not so faceless because I did eventually learn that it was a girl.’

‘A _woman_. After The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants debacle; Louis had put his claws in a woman and then fallen madly in love with her and it made me want to throw him in the swamps. He denied it, of course, or maybe he was denying it to himself but he wasn’t fooling me. The damn Internet. The fucking internet. During those dark months, I hated the fact that it had ever been invented. I wanted to go back in time and strangle Babbage with my bare hands. And I didn’t get it, not really. I liked the concept of the world wide web, but I’d never really taken a serious interest in it because all the world's a stage and why would I want to spend my time there when I could go out and explore and do terrible things to people by accident or on purpose? But of course Louis is different; sheltered. We spent so many years in one place on Rue Royal, sometimes I regret that because I feel that I almost made him the way he is; cloistered and prone to introversion.’

‘I bought another dog.’

‘Specifically, I bought a beautiful, wag-tailed golden retriever puppy and named her Noel and brought her home to keep me company while Louis went through his internet-related insanity. Maybe it was a good thing that I did, because around that time is when his online tete-a-tete began to go sour. And oh it went sour. More sour than spoiled milk left out in the Louisiana sun for several days. His lady friend began to find other things that suited her interest better and of course he came to me to complain about it. Specifically, he came to me to complain about it when I was sitting out in the garden with the dog at midnight playing fetch. I remember it specifically because he was disheveled; the internet will do that to you too, I’ve discovered. Quite disheveled even for Louis and I took one glance at him and wanted to toss him in the bath. I refrained, of course, because I was wounded and lonely and I just wanted to yell at him but I couldn’t.’

‘“She’s gone’” he’d said tightly. “For several days I think.”’

‘He then looked at Noel like he hadn’t realized she existed and I wanted to slap him again. I think it must be a French thing; wanting to slap idiots. Or maybe it’s something we simply more readily acknowledge.’

‘“Oh, are you talking to me?”’ I asked lightly.

He sighed.

‘“Don’t be like that.”’

‘“Like what?’” I needled, unable to stop it.

‘“Like you haven’t done worse!”’ he exploded, or at least, exploded for Louis.

It was quite a statement, really, to his level of upset. Even more so was the way he strode over to the bench I was resting on and sat down like he had the entire world atop his shoulders. Noel came running with the ball and I threw it again before settling back myself. I suppose it must seem strange; for us to be able to hold our ground with each other despite the rift between us. But you must understand that a year is like a day...really; especially at this point. When you’ve lived long enough, and done enough, a rift isn’t so much of a chasm as it is a chip in the foundations of who you are together. And it hadn’t gone on as much as it had with Claudia, not even close.’

‘“And so your little pet has gone away” I mused, tilting my head up to look at the stars. ‘“And now suddenly I am important again.”’

‘“She’s not a pet, she’s a friend” was the resentful return. ‘“And she’s on a trip; with people she knows.”’

‘I looked at him incredulously.’

‘“On a trip”’ I echoed slowly. _’”Mon dieu_ , Louis, you make it sound like she’s gone to the moon! And you say she’s not a pet to you, what is she then?”’

‘I think it was the first time he’d really considered it.’

‘The love I mean, when I pointed out how he was acting. When he did, the level of despair on his visage was staggering. Because both of us knew that this wasn’t something to be taken lightly, wasn’t something to consider flagrantly.’

‘“You’re in a fine mess”’ I sighed, relenting and putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘“ _Mon ange,_ you must know where this might lead...if you act. And if you don’t act…” I trailed off. I didn’t need to continue. He’d leaned into my hand somewhat and for that I was grateful. I would take what I could get; because I’d had so little of it of late. “Look” I said at length. “If you’ve considered the Turn-” His eyes slid away. Really, they slid away so fast it was alarming. “You have” I whispered, astounded. “You! You who is so against what we are, have considered the Turn!”’

‘“It’s not as if I didn’t before-” he began, but I cut him off.

“Oh _oui_ , with Merrick” I hissed, unable to stop myself. “And look what you did after that!” I stood then, so agitated that I couldn’t keep still. “You haven’t even met her! Never! Not in person!”

‘“I shouldn’t have told you at all” he exclaimed, rising as well. ‘“And you have no _right_ to be jealous Lestat!”’

‘I could have ended us there, right then. I wanted to; wanted to on a purely primal and vicious level because I am the vampire Lestat and that is what I do. I could have said something truly hurtful to him, could have likened him to any of my previous transgressions and he would have fled; I am sure of it. But I didn’t, and in some ways I am surprised that I didn’t because I was-for the first time-truly hurting from what Louis was doing to me. You must understand that passing fancies never concern us...because they are exactly that...passing.

But to speak of the Turn, to understand that he wanted someone forever in a way that was so permanently binding; that was hurtful because it told me that on some level, I was not enough. Some insecure facet of me, borne from my terrible past actions, withered at the idea of it because it was nothing less than true in my own mind. I always feared that you see, from the moment I saw him...that I would never be enough for Louis. Before the Veil between our psyches fell, I saw the vast...limitless expanse of his mind; and it _frightened_ me. He was eons above my level of mental comprehension; beyond anyone’s really but I made him anyway because I loved him so deeply and so desperately and yet here, now, was proof that even I could not measure up.’

‘Louis has been, and always will be, out of my league.’

‘I kissed him, I think. Or maybe I just put my mouth on his because I felt like I ought to; because I wanted to breathe him into me...at least a little bit. His arms came up around me hard, and I think he was searching not necessarily for romance, but for solace. It didn’t lead to anything; nothing at all. We just stood there, in the garden, holding each other until dawn made it impossible for us to remain where we were. And there were things we needed to say to each other, things unspoken that needed to be put on the table so both of us could understand them...but it wasn’t the time. I was willing to take what I could get; and what I was getting was his nearness...his presence, and I was so hungry for him...starving really. We don’t talk about that...I don’t, I don’t think I did. That bond between maker and fledgling; it’s so powerful, even for he who does the making. I think in some ways it's supposed to be, because when you make someone with the concept of forever in mind, there is some instinctual and biological tether that binds you to that individual. So it was and is with Louis and I, despite our history. I need him, and he needs me.’

‘I think distance and perhaps the creation of other fledglings can coagulate that need to some degree. We certainly had distance between us for some time, and both of us told ourselves that it didn’t hurt. Marius, I think, still hurts for Armand. I don’t know if they’ve ever got ‘round to talking about that...sometimes I wonder. But I did hurt...for decades, for Louis. I messed up, quite spectacularly. I don’t think...either of us...we don’t talk about it, and now I am mincing words because it’s hard to force it out. But when Claudia...in the fire...I could see him. I could see him standing there with her...watching me burn and his eyes...his eyes were traumatized. Anger, fear, pain, disbelief and some horrible, twisting longing and _I did that to him._ I did. I recognized that look, because it was the look that-so I imagine-I gave my father when he took to beating me. That all encompassing, terrible fear coupled with love and hate. And I was my father in that moment...in that burning, agonizing moment...and Louis was me.’

‘The realization of that was a scourge on my soul.’

‘He touches me now, as I write this. Touches me in that paper-thin, glass bottle type way...my Louis. And I fear that I’ve made a mess of this, because I really didn’t mean to get so very serious about it but it seems that old age makes scholars of us all. I didn’t correct myself right away, of course. It takes time, even for the immortal, to grow up. I’ve never been particularly responsible, how could I be? When I was turned, I had, quite abruptly, more money than I could possibly know what to do with. I never had to work, never had to assume any great amount of bearing when it comes to character or duty. And, true, I’ve done some monumentally successful things in my very long life, but where did they take me? Right back to Louis, of course. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner; I don’t know why I bothered running for so long. It’s really almost tragic, because I marked him for me, and then I abused him. What travesty. And now I really must stop, because he looks as if he might weep.’

‘Like a fire slowly dying.’

‘That’s the only way I can describe how things petered out with this whole ‘online’ debacle. Because Louis would get angry, and then he would become morose during his companion’s absence; and in morosity Louis matures at a staggeringly fast rate. He is really rather like a skunk cabbage in that matter because the wetter he is the more he thrives. That’s really rather a horrible analogy. I think, at some point, he realized that his methodology of dedication was so eternal that a human couldn’t possibly keep up with it. She had other, mortal preoccupations, obligations and duties and there were times when I truly felt sorry for her because Louis can make you feel terrible about absolutely anything, even when it’s perfectly reasonable. Anyone who says that Louis cannot be manipulative has never spent any extended amount of time around him, because he absolutely can. I don’t think he told her about what we are, and I’m glad he didn’t because then we would have had a rather larger problem, so of course she was ignorant to the fact that she was talking to someone several hundred years her senior who had all the time in the world. I have no idea what he told her regarding his life; if he told her somewhat of the truth or if he fabricated something entirely...I really don’t know, nor do I know her name, her age, or where she was from, and I don’t want to know.’

‘He came to me one day and I knew it was finished. I knew because the cursed laptop was not anywhere near him, and he had the air of someone who had perhaps fought a long and lengthy inward battle. Sad...he was sad, but he had also come to terms with something, had accepted something for what it was. I don’t think, either, that he ever told her he loved her. Louis doesn’t throw such words around lightly like I do. I can walk up to a stranger on the street and declare that I love them because I am particularly fond of the hat they are wearing. Not so with Louis. Louis’s love is a rare thing...no paltry, cheap rumination said in the midst of an impulse. And even if it is not an impulse, it is rarely said because Louis is squarely aware of what love can do to people. He is a gentleman, and he will always be a gentleman who thinks of what others might feel before he ever even squarely thinks of himself. I honestly don’t think he can control it. Some two years it was...and I do not think he stopped talking to her because he didn’t love her anymore. After all, vampiric love is quite a powerful thing, and we have all seen the results of that. No...I don’t think Louis walked away from it because he was bored…’

‘...I think he walked away to spare her.’

‘It’s a very Dark Angel thing to do...so very like my sweet Merciful Death. And yet this time he did not deliver the killing blow...not at all...for he could not and would not. And I do not think she loved him, not in the way that he loved her, in any case; because if she had I think I would have had...a much more _eternal_ issue to contend with. Which, and I say this with a deep satisfaction and smugness; _bully for you darling._ You must also understand that he did not love her as he loved me; old love goes a long way...and of course, as his maker, we are bound together in ways that cannot truly be put into words. And it was a long egress, full of hysterics on his part; Louis hysterics, as I have said before. He explained to me, much later, that the last year was-for the most part detachment; he didn't want to rip away from her, you see...didn't want to hurt her by disappearing like a phantom as we so often do. He had figured out by then that she didn't want him...or at least that they were too different...too vastly separate apart from their shared love of knowledge. That is one strength, I will say, that Louis and I share; we are very different-and this may sound incorrigible-but we never cease to entertain each other. I do not think that she and he had that balance. I think I loved him more for the care that he took; for the consideration. I would never do such a thing, I would have torn it asunder and left it to rot because that is what I do.'

 _'"Maybe we can have many Great Loves"_ Louis murmured, so, so many nights after that...standing in the foyer and looking a bit lost. His eyes swept to me then...those beautiful, green and unfathomable eyes and for a moment I caught the nature of his despair. But gazing at me...he softened; something in him went lax and bittersweet even as his lids lowered and a wan smile curved his lips. _"Maybe not"_ he continued gently. And then, abruptly, he looked as if he might weep. _"Ça alors, Lestat, I have been cruel to you!"'_

 _'"Non"_ I'd crooned, going to him then, gathering all of him up to me and running my hands over his shirtfront in a fretful manner. _"Non, mon coeur._ _It's in the past, yes? And it was something you needed to do, and who was I to stop you?'"_

Why would I tell you this, you might ask? Because you must understand that we do see you, humans that is. We’re not blind to you. It is, in fact, quite hard to ignore you at times because there are so many wonderful, exciting things about you. And no, I am not talking about blood. There are so many unique and wonderful people in the world, and yes, it would be lovely to preserve it all...to have it go on forever. But forever, ah _merde_ , forever's not so beautiful as I think we sometimes paint it to be. Forever can be painful; forever is the knowledge of sacrifice.’

‘“I figured it out’” he said to me, that day...without the laptop.

‘And I looked at him, looked long and hard at my beautiful love as he came to me...curled up with me on the couch in front of the TV and fairly molded himself into my lap.’

‘“Kant?’” I murmured, stroking his hair, and he nodded into my armpit. “What did you find out _chéri_?”’

‘“There is too much worth in this world for me to know what to do with it” he muttered.’

‘I think I laughed, but not to make fun of him; I do understand such things, you see.’

“‘Oh, Louis” I whispered against that dark, onyx river. “If only you knew….”’

‘“...If only you knew how much worth is in you.’”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis offers his own version of the 'internet debacle.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The editors at Renaud's Editing LLC in Gentilly note that they received this letter, again, anonymously; with a coffee stain on the left corner of the envelope._

‘For Lestat, everything is definable by a distinct...whiplash definition.’

‘If I did not love him so, I wouldn’t say this; because I am not judging his character. I am, effectively, judging the bias of his viewpoint. It is easy to explain things, it is not so easy to understand them. I am here before you, in the narrative sense because I have confiscated Lestat’s account of the ‘online debacle’, as he puts it. I have shut myself in a diner on Royal and Gov Nicholls St. It is raining..which is perhaps not so unusual considering the time of year and my location. With me, I have brought a pen, a notebook, and I have ordered a coffee to keep up the pretense of humanity. It is here, under these terribly too-bright halogen lights that I shall attempt to give my account of the experience.’

‘I am not definable by a sole purpose...perhaps because with so many years behind me, the intricacies of the annotations of purpose are something that stretches out...something that grows thin and taut and easy to misconstrue. I would beg you to comprehend that I am not, in any way, dismissing Lestat’s narrative; merely the panorama of his discernment. He calls...for example...my escapades a _’fascination’_. I understand what he means by this, but the egalitarian in me finds the terminology terribly insulting, because it was not merely a fascination.’

‘Human fascinations are not simple.’

‘They are passionate...how can they not be passionate? I will echo my maker’s phraseology in stating that humans have so little time in which to develop such passions, but that does not minimize their worth or their beauty. I think-and I say this not to pander to you, but to acknowledge you-that mortal passions are perhaps a thousand times more robust than immortal passions. Because you must burn bright...you must shine and dazzle and then go out because of the limited space of chronology in which you live.’

‘Lestat does not-to some extent-understand that; perhaps because Lestat’s mortal life was so full of negative contraindications. Your passions are just as dangerous as ours...even though ours often have morbid...melancholy ends. And of course, humans can be given to a woeful existence...but your misery does not extend into centuries. I envy you...or perhaps I used to envy you...your impermanence.’

‘Lestat likes to bank things upon a facsimile of guilt and terrible decisions.’

‘I wish that he wouldn’t, because when he does this...it makes it difficult for him...for anyone...to move on. David was made cruelly, but I don’t think that at this point in time, he regrets it. Nicki’s death was tragic...he was broken and beaten down...and sometimes I look at that narrative, in Lestat’s story...and I wonder if I would have wandered there...into that madness...had I been more given to my proclivities. But Nicki is gone...and sometimes I wish that he was not...or I have wished...because perhaps Lestat would have grounded himself earlier. There are times when I am very angry at Nicki for treating him as he did, even though the logician in me states that he could not help it. In the past, I think that I was resentful of him because if not for his insanity and subsequent death...Lestat may not have met me at all...and I would have remained mortal, able to die without putting such great effort into it. I do not, of course, think this now. But it bears mentioning that shadows haunt us all...even if we have not met them.’

‘You know how I feel about the Change.’

‘At the very least, I should hope that you comprehend somewhat that I deeply disapprove of it. _Monsieur_ , of course, would attribute this to my apparently undying Catholicism. It pains me to partially agree with him, but he is correct in the sense that I do not believe anything should be eternal. In years gone by I would have said ‘ _I do not believe anything but God and Heaven should be eternal_ ’, but my Faith has been forever mercurial...and for now, it is somewhat in absentia.’

‘I think that immortality goes against nature...against progress. I am more at peace with the concept than I used to be, but I do not think the Turn should be given lightly. If I am to throw caution to the wind and be nakedly honest; I do not think the change should be given at all. It is in these passages of Lestat’s account that I find some measure of contentment, because he does acknowledge the grave ramifications of the Change. He has learned...and I do not ignore that he has learned. I do see the changes in him...and they are not little, petty things that he considers with the flick of a finger anymore.’

‘My poor love.’

‘He would find offense in that...in the above statement, something along the lines of pity...but he doesn’t know what I mean. He doesn’t know that I see the weight in his eyes...weight that was not there when I met him. For all his flair, for all his grandstanding and frippery, Lestat was...at the turn of the century, a terribly empty individual. He was traumatized, angry and fearful. Then he was brash and bold and full of color and disregard. Ever the jester, ever the beloved villain. He won’t tell you, so I will tell you that such actions...such ways of living, they have a cost. They have a terrible cost. And he does love his audience; sometimes I think he has rather loved his audience too much. I don’t hate you, of course, for your adoration of him.’

‘It is insurmountably difficult not to love Lestat. I don’t know why, sometimes I’ve hated him for his magnetism. It has, effectively, always meant that I could never truly have him...all of him. He belongs to so many. But that belonging, that personification comes at the sacrifice of privacy...of being able to do things just to do them and to not have the intent of creating a sweeping, eloquent tale out of it once all is said and done. The millstone ‘round his neck is a thing self-inflicted, but not a thing anticipated. If I must be base about it; Lestat can never truly rest in peace….'

'...But it is of his own doing.'

‘Don’t ever let Lestat fool you into thinking he can shrug the world off his shoulders; don’t let him fool you into thinking he doesn’t care, or that he floats along through existence without acknowledgement or despair. I see it...in his gaze, in the sadness that lingers there after he laughs. I see it in the way he stands by the window in the parlor...sometimes overlong...like he is looking for something that escapes him. There are nights when he will sit in the garden with Noel for hours...when he will wander the little green space that a human tends during the day...unaware of our slumbering solace.’

‘He will wander and wander, and _I_ wonder what he is looking for...amongst the stars and things that grow in silence. He takes my hands...the ‘Brat Prince’...he takes my hands in the witching hour and runs his fingers over every line...every valley while we sit by the fire and say nothing at all. Maybe that is the fate of those who choose to write their lives into paged permanence. Maybe we are always looking...maybe we are always asking questions to which there are no answers.’

‘I’ve never written another book.’

‘Not on my own...in any case, I have good reason for it...and the above is but one of them. I don’t thrive on attention and speculation, on mystery or intrigue. I’ll admit the inconsistencies in my book, but I will also beg for you to consider the fact that Lestat never said a word to me of what he said to you in his book. Consider...for a moment...the fact that I picked up his novel and read it, that I looked through it in a dusty bookshop after dusk and saw that he was willing to tell millions of faceless strangers more in a few nights of reading than he was willing to tell me in over seventy years.’

‘I cannot possibly elucidate to you the terrible pain of that acknowledgement. It was so great, that I initially dismissed the book as complete rubbish. Because if I acknowledged it, I also acknowledged that I had tried to murder someone who loved me so much it drove him to desperate, cruel and fanatic heights to keep me safe. Even if I was in the dark...in his eyes...I was safe, so no matter how much pain he caused me...I was alive, and he could love me from afar.'

‘If I acknowledged his book, I acknowledged my own folly.’

‘Marius has a way with words. I know, perish the thought you’d ever hear me say that, but Marius has a way of being dreadfully frightening, sometimes entirely by accident. Marius scared Lestat half to death, and I think that is quite a feat. He scared him enough that he was willing to endure me hating him for seventy years rather than risk our lives-from his perspective-by telling me this or that. Sometimes I don’t know who makes me angrier; Lestat, who was so scared of an ancient, bookish vampire that he left the country and crossed the ocean and didn’t make a peep about it, or Marius who drove Lestat away, partially because of the Ancients and partially because he was jealous that his sleeping Queen would not let him drink from her the way Lestat drank from her. It was all very much a _’look who did it and ran’’._.

‘I never understood Lestat...you see. I never understood him because I could not see that his voice was far more honest on paper than it was ever going to be to my face. Lestat was, effectively, too afraid of being honest with me then, because honesty makes him vulnerable, and he knew it would make me vulnerable as well.’

‘Sometimes I still wonder at that; at how our inability to communicate made things so terribly difficult. And don’t listen to him when he says that I am prone to offense; I am constantly offended. I think offended would be too kind a word, really, I believe that _hysterical_ would be a better term. I am a very hysterical vampire, because I was brought into the night, and my nocturnal ‘bridegroom’ was Lestat de Lioncourt. If you think that that does not warrant some type of instantaneous unhingement I haven’t the faintest clue what books you’re reading but perhaps they take place in Forks, Washington.’

‘If I want Lestat to be honest with me, I ask him to write me a letter.’

‘I’m sure this is where much of the audience would make ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s regarding the overall adorableness of the situation, but it is not adorable. Because _Monsieur_ will take a week to write me a letter, even if it is an honest and lovely letter, and I must wonder about his possible intentions until that time space has concluded. I have a boxful of his letters, and they are all wonderful and inconvenient all at once because if I ask Lestat to write me a letter, he will want the same. I am sure you are familiar with the children’s book regarding biscuits and mice by Laura Numeroff. I could, quite easily, narrate an adult version of this book with my maker as a replacement for the mouse, and a letter as a replacement for the cookie.’

_’If Lestat gives you a letter, then he will ask for a letter in return. When you give him the letter, he will ask you out for ‘dinner’. When Lestat is finished with ‘dinner’, he will ask for a walk down Laffite Greenway. Lestat will want to analyze both of your letters on a park bench, to see if your ideas are aligned. When Lestat looks at your letters, he will inevitably see a miniscule problem to complain about. After Lestat has complained, he will want to have an argument at home; Lestat might break every room in the house. Lestat will then be tired, and will want to ‘make up’. You will have to give him kisses, and find it within yourself to forgive him his ridiculousness, and shower him with affection...but not too much ‘lest his head swell to dangerous proportions.’_

_‘Lestat will make himself comfortable, on the couch, with his head on your lap, and ask you to read a book. He will ask you questions about the book until you can’t bear it anymore and you tell him to be quiet, or write down what he is thinking until the book has been completed. Lestat will write furiously with a pen and paper whilst you read; and he will sign it with his flamboyant, atrociously loopy signature. He will read it-his paper, not the book-several times, while you drag yourself upstairs in order to avoid succumbing to the death sleep in broad daylight. The next night, he will give you the paper, and ask you for one in return...and then he will want to go out for ‘dinner.’’_

‘I’m sure you see the pattern.’

‘Thusly, I have a box of circulatory letters in my escritoire, courtesy of Lestat and my apparently insatiable masochistic streak. I am not, of course, dismissing the value of them, because he writes beautifully. Don’t ever let Lestat tell you that he is not fond of literature; he is. He is just very fond of his _own_ literature, and he does not actually want to hear your counterpoints; he wants you to agree with him. He wants you to wax poetic on his...ability to wax poetic. Lestat is self-absorbed, and he loves himself very much even if he acts as if he’s got some terrible vendetta against his own inner monologue.’

‘Don’t ever let him fool you; Lestat is never sorry, he only wants you to feel sorry he is sorry. One would wonder what I’ve ever done in life-or death-to fall in love with such a being. I don’t really know, I really don’t. But I do love him rather terribly because he has good facets as much as he’s an egomaniacal tyrant. And he’s grown...but don’t think he’s grown so very terribly much.’

‘My point, in all this, is that I have never had the urge to rid Lestat of his clothes because he can philosophize to me over his shoulder.’

‘I won’t pretend not to like it, but I also know better than to cater to it. And you can’t blame me for hating the computer, because the computer is so much like Lestat. It is full of information, some of it correct, some of it incorrect. There are forums and chat rooms and pages filled with mean-spirited individuals who want to talk about fornication and put books onto screens. The internet is dramatic; the computer is a vessel for the internet, much like Lestat’s mouth is a vessel for his vitriol. So yes, I disliked the idea of a machine that could think faster than I could vampirically blink, and spew out yards of information that might or might not help me or might be completely confusing because I’ve been there and done that if I must use so modern a phrase. It was not a phobia so much as it was a full-body abhorrence for the utterly familiar and completely unnecessary.’

‘And yes, perhaps my reaction to e-books was a tad overdone, but just look at it from my perspective for but a moment. I didn’t need another excuse to run Lestat off, or to run off from Lestat due to the ease of relative access to literature. And I do like television, yes, but what one of us doesn’t like television? There are so many exciting, interesting things to watch on the flatscreen that couldn’t be even close to possible in real life. So I threw it out, what of it? He can’t possibly complain about it, as he said. And no, I shan’t get into the niceties of...that. If you want that, you will have to wait for Lestat because I am-according to him-terribly prone to offense. If I must talk of the bedroom I shall possibly gather carpet topography data, so very fragile is my ego.’

‘I did not like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.’

‘I was, at the time, interested in the concept of the pack mentality. You might-or might not-be familiar with Nietzsche; the higher man and the herd...all of that. Morality, if I must descend into the inanely translatable. The TV show in question was chock full of questions, of choices between the high road and the low road. I won’t pretend to act as if any of this added to the tangibility of the plot, or the already questionable level of acting. I do, however, like the conundrum of choice, and I was very curious to see if the choices that went on during the series were in any way relatable or parallel to the choices you’d expect people to make. And he wanted me to pay attention to him, I was not ignoring that, but I’d set my mind on figuring out, and that sort of focus is very hard to break...and I’m usually quite irritable if I have to do so.’

‘I’m actually very plain.’

‘It's strange to hear someone talk about me as physically attractive. Lestat, and Armand, you will note, did not love me initially because of any outward facet, not at the core of their attraction. On and on they went about my apparently earnest humanity...of the purity of my soul. _Mon dieu_ , you know, I am not one to advocate for outer aesthetic. I won’t make a dishonest man of myself and say that I cannot appreciate exterior beauty, but I also will not be dishonest and say that every time either of them talked about my ‘heart’ that I wasn’t seized with the urge to do something terribly violent just to prove them wrong. Oh, and my eyes, my ‘soulful’ green eyes. The first time Lestat turned to me and told me I was beautiful, and then went off on a spiel about my fingers and mouth, I very nearly kissed him. I am mortified to declare this, but it was so relieving to _hear_ it that I very nearly did it. What a vain point of view, but what a refreshing point of view.’

‘That’s not-of course-to say that I agree with it.’

‘Lestat is terribly exciting to look at, but I think he would be exciting to look at if he were cross-eyed and stout with no hair and a gumby walk. It’s in his energy...in the manner in which he exudes it. The fact that Lestat is attractive puts him-possibly-eons above anything even close to fairness when it comes to coming in contact with other sentient beings. I think if he reads this he should possibly explode with vanity, but it does bear mentioning that the cards are, as far as charismatics and aesthetics go, tipped heavily in his favor.’

‘All that rich, golden hair...his reflective eyes...his lean but strong figure and grace. No wonder I was unable to resist him. And it doesn’t have anything to do with sexual attraction, and yes I am able to say the words _’sexual attraction’_. Lestat was overwhelming, as I’ve said before, and he continues to be overwhelming even if I’m able to handle it better than I have in the past. My point in all of this is to highlight the fact that it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was suddenly seized with the impression that Lestat was a troll.’

‘I’ve said it was Nietzsche, and it was Nietzsche…’

‘....But it was also because I could not understand Costas, and how very terribly stupid he was being. I’ve never pretended to understand romance. Modern romance, that is. There is always some element of tragic deception-in this case, a nonexistent pregnancy-and then the _’voilà!’_ moment, usually after a very lengthy and long-winded misunderstanding. I am at odds with the _’voilà!’_ , because the _’voilà!’_ is either so obvious or so convoluted that it ruins the struggle in order to get there. And in reality, sometimes there is no _’voilà!’_ at all. Sometimes you are kept wondering, sometimes you keep asking questions and sometimes you get absolutely no answers or the answer is not what you wish it would.’

‘I was worrying my lip over this, over what _monsieur_ would call the futility of existentialism, when said individual decided that an assault upon my nethers was necessary. And let me tell you this; if you knew Lestat, and I mean _truly_ knew him, and he were to make a grab for you in such a way, you would find it in your heart to be just as wary of the gesture and just as protestant as I was.’

‘Lestat careens off at this point to talk about his possible rule.’

‘I would not be a good leader.’

‘It goes without saying that I am less than sociable, at times. I think I'm perfectly capable of playing the host if the need calls for it, and I would have been content, if not happy, as Lestat’s advisor. I would go as far as to say that I am not as fond of people-even when they’re immortal-as my maker, and the idea of governing over a gaggle of them is less than ideal. This is where I would, again, tell you to not listen to my maker, because he undersells himself. I think it has much to do with the fact that if the public-both vampire public and greater public-have low opinions of him then they won’t expect very much from him in the first place.’

‘That being said, for those of you who are familiar with Atlantis, I think you will understand when I say I’m distinctly uncomfortable discussing it in great detail. Lestat is as well, but he’s able to redirect your focus far better than I am; so I will simply say that...it was an experience. In life we have many experiences, and we can choose to do with them as we see fit. In this case, Lestat opted to refurbish his familial estate in Auvergne-he doesn’t tell you that, now, does he?- and then left it in the care of those capable of doing right by it and the populace there. Forthwith, he proceeded to stampede to Stockholm to harass Marius.’

‘After the events of the aforementioned books we parted ways for a while, mostly due to the fact that he did not know what he wanted to do, and because I wanted to read in peace and quiet without wondering if the world was going to fall down around my head. I went to New York for a while, and then I visited our fair city and caught wind that my maker was about, and so I went to see him.’

‘I did not _demand_ to move in.’

‘I want to make that very clear. I asked to stay for a while-not the night, for a _while_ , because I had only just woken up-far too early, I might add-and I wanted to sit down. You could make some grandstanding scenario about that, I suppose; the ever-melancholy and ever-bedraggled Louis de Pointe Du Lac frantically searching New Orleans for his beloved maker; bothering to rise from his coffin-and I do not sleep in a coffin anymore unless absolutely necessary-atrociously early in order to seek out his paramour. _Silvouplait_ , understand that it a _habit_ to look frantically for Lestat if you hear that he is in the vicinity because usually it means that he is up to no good and you best find him before something dreadful happens.’

‘Yes, we did argue, because we went ‘round about something or other, I think it was about the fact that I left him-and I told him I was going so it shouldn’t have surprised him at all-and then somehow we got ourselves tangled into a conundrum regarding cohabitation. I did want to, you must understand, but I didn’t want to under the premises we had lived with one another before, and he took great offense to that so I left. You know by now that that didn’t last very long. Because Lestat will-when he’s got his mind set to something-chase you down and have it out of you. And he did, and perhaps I resisted him for a week, but he moved my books while I was out hunting, and then there wasn’t much I could do about it.’

‘Here he goes on about the de-emotionalization the old blood brings. I agree with this to some degree, but in others...I do not. I will not, however, follow down the path he goes here...because I think I might completely abandon the plot. At this point, I would hope that you are beginning to understand why I didn’t, and likely won’t, write another book.’

‘It is not because I have nothing to say, it’s because I have far too much to say. So much time has passed between when I dictated the first that I simply wouldn’t be able to finish the rest in a manner that is satisfying to me; not in a timely enough manner that most of the initial readership wouldn’t be dead. I think it would dishearten me, and I don’t think much of it would be much of anything but pointing out the inconsistencies in the novels that succeeded mine. I have my own theories regarding things...my own opinions...yes. But-at the risk of adhering too much to my characterization-I enjoy reading more than I enjoy writing.’

‘I didn’t care a whit about the drapes.’

‘It’s true, and he is correct in saying this. I have never given a damn about the drapes or the carpet or the upholstery save for when description aids me in delivering a few rudimentary paragraphs regarding overall decor so we-me, the narrator, and you, the reader-do not have any awkward silences between us; because believe me we are always in danger of that, you and me. Lestat is also correct in saying that _he_ argues with _me_ over such things because for some reason he is dreadfully appalled by the fact I can ignore decorative and fashion-related trends only to be perfectly content and completely sane.’

‘We shall go back to Pointe du Lac for this anecdote; as loathe as I am to do so.’

‘You will remember that my home was a generational home, in the sense that my father ran the plantation before me and so I did after him and I did not and he did not care about the drapes then either. It was all inherited, all passed down and traditional and nice on the eyes but that was not my doing. It was the Lady of the house’s doing; that is all. I am-of course-quite aware now that Lestat did not develop such a rapid obsession with me because of the fanciness of my upholstery, but it bears mentioning that, having been under such an impression for so long and then to have him fair slaver over every new, stitched, gilded, or comfortable thing thrown his way...it did nothing to set him higher in my esteem. And yes, it was my idea to move so you’d think that I’d have had something to do with decor, but I knew that Lestat would have it well in hand; and he did. He just complained about it the whole time but-and I shall say this until I am faint, I fear-don’t let him fool you; he enjoyed every minute of it.’

‘We did fight.’

‘We did, but you should understand that much of us ‘fighting’ involves Lestat releasing his neurosis upon yours truly and the house. I am not denying that there is some form of neurosis in me; I did, admittedly, let him burn up. There is some element of psychological instability there; I won’t deny it. And of course you will note that I have followed him hither and thither and denied him immortality. I think it is, perhaps, easier to dismiss my actions because I go about them less explosively..or perhaps with less yelling; but there are elements to our relationship, elements of toxicity, that are not entirely Lestat’s fault.’

‘We worked through it...I think that goes without saying. And it did surprise me that we could work through it, because there have been so many other times where one or both of us simply couldn’t tolerate the other anymore. Lestat is very open about intimacies...I am not. I think there was, indeed, a point where we realized that perhaps there was some element of each other we wanted more than the constant, heaving element of unrest between us. However, I won’t credit it merely to physical exchange; I will credit it to individual growth.’

‘There he goes again about my eyes.’

‘Lestat is right in the sense that we talked of the past. What else is there to do, after all? And Rue Royal...I think we’ve talked about it for perhaps what accumulates to many nights. The truth of the matter is that in the end...we both walked away from it with scars. Of Memnoch I won’t speak, and of his ventures in the desert I will not either, because there are indeed some subjects too sensitive to put to the public. That being said, I do not think that Lestat writes with the intent to wound. From the vampiric perspective...it is sometimes very difficult to understand why he does what he does...and why he does it so often.’

;My maker is habitually destructive, and I think that perhaps he has written his destruction into immortality not just so he can connect with you, but also so we-those who suffer, and who tolerate, and who love him-can understand his motives. You might scoff at the notion of the Great Vampire Lestat wanting to be understood...but I think there is an inherent need in him to be comprehended...or at least to be seen. Some of it is vanity, but some of it is a raw, deep-seated need to prove himself...to rise above himself.’

‘I don’t know ...I don’t know how much Lestat realizes that so much of what he fights is a likeness of himself; _Lestat battles a stat of Lestat_. Perhaps bringing levity into it goes too far, but it is a gentle, tender kind of levity...because you must do that...you must. And I do not think that Lestat has damaged me. I think that there is a distinct difference in inflicting pain when you are in pain, and inflicting pain for the sake of reveling in it. Here is where I could again wander from the plot...because _Monsieur_ loves to give the impression of embracing a dark version of himself...loves to act the part of the evildoer. It’s part of his character, I think. That and the reality that his actions are often orchestrated with the intent to make a story of it sometime in the future.’

‘I don’t believe I need to tell you what an unhealthy manner of mentality that is...what a stressful one. There are times when that singular facet of his persona has driven me from him, because it is destructive for the sake of the stage, and damn who it hurts. He would take pleasure in me finding abhorrence in such a narrative, because that is who Lestat is; as long as he has your attention, it doesn’t matter what he does...he has it. And if he doesn’t he _will_ have it, one way or another. In recent years I feel that perhaps he has grown out of that...but it does not change the fact that one is always in danger of being wrapped up into it if they are close to him.’

‘I will say again, I did not like The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.’

‘It made me think of Kant, because of the nature in which the characters directed themselves, in terms of morality and discovering morality. I don’t like to talk about moral law, not on paper, because the subject of it is so debatable depending on whose theories and imperatives you are referring to. Debate is rather useless if you’re not before the person you’re debating with, or if you’re not writing solely for the sake of debate.’

‘And so I will not draw you into my musings too much here, only that I wasn’t paying attention to Lestat because I was caught between thinking about Nietzche and Kant, and the amount of information I had at the time-despite being vast-was not allowing me to draw any solid conclusions. It was, unbeknownst to me, becoming a question in regards to existentialism, and I am always in danger of wondering about existentialism no matter what I am doing. It didn’t matter that Lestat was trying to ‘get me out of my pants.’ It mattered that suddenly I was seized with a terrible urge to understand purpose and worth. But I couldn’t explain that to him, even when I asked him about the backstory.’

‘He is so good at flattering me.’

‘Curled up next to me, wearing an atrociously expensive and soft sweater...blue I believe it was...he was certainly flattering me. Lestat doesn’t lie when he says that blue compliments his eyes...everything compliments him. If something is beautiful, Lestat will absorb that beauty and it will accentuate him merely by existing. I won’t go on about Adonis, or Grecian Gods because I think that’s been done, and then done again. I think it’s been done so many times it is quite thoroughly dead, but he was looking at me...with all his fine...glittering hair, his pouting mouth and those reflective eyes. He was looking at me and you must understand that to be the central focus of his attention can still be an overwhelming, swept-off-your-feet sort of sensation.’

‘I think it is because he is wont to give his attention to so many things. When you have Lestat’s focus, it is rather like being under a spotlight; a beautiful but terrible spotlight. I think I was, in that moment intimidated by it, but that moment bled into another moment...a moment where he was-quite childishly-worried that he did not please me, and the sense of being placed before judge and jury dissolved into an affectionate humor. I’ve said this before, you must attend to Lestat with affection...you must. And so I did, because in his haranguing was a kind of endearing worry...a thing far sweeter than you’d think it could be coming from the individual in question.’

‘Rare.’

‘It is rare for Lestat to say that he loves me. I know he loves me...it was impossible for me not to know...once we figured everything out. But it goes without saying that the truth of his love has only been a truth to me recently. _Monsieur_ is quick to declare his love for frivolous things...but the meaning is naught. For Lestat de Lioncourt to declare honest love is a thing of almost dreamlike quality. So when I tell him that I love him, it is not with the expectation of anything in return. It does not need to be said between us.’

‘I kissed him, and I meant it, but my mind was on Nietzche and then Kant. If you really want to know about Kant and moral worth, I would suggest some academic perusal of the subject. However, I am aware that one cannot merely attend _université_ these days to attend to the subject that interests them, so I will refrain from driving the point in too hard. Both Lestat and I enjoy philosophy, but he enjoys the more outlandish philosophers. I think they make him laugh. Sometimes, I do not think Lestat does anything unless he thinks he might get a good laugh out of it. An example of this would be central to the fact that Lestat likes CATS, but he’s never bothered to read any of the original poems Eliot wrote.’

‘If you think about the core message of CATS-if you can even say that CATS has a core message-it’s all really rather prosaic. The beauty of the musical comes from the actors. I have seen very few other musicals that can bring to life something so completely otherwise inane. It is speculated that Eliot wrote _’Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’_ for his friends to enjoy. I do not think Eliot ever meant for his books to be turned into a play. I think perhaps he’d have enjoyed it, but there is a separation between Webber and Eliot; and Lestat does not care to think about that. It’s the intricacies...the little things. It is not entertaining, and therefore it does not interest Lestat, but it interests me.’

‘Nietzsche was much harsher than Kant.’

‘Their writings, if you compare them, speak for themselves. This is where I will lose some of you, because in order to understand my thinking, I must take you down a rather studious and dry road regarding ethicality and perhaps some religion. Kant’s goal was, to brutally nutshell it, replace the moral standards of religion with moral awareness. This he called _the categorical imperative_ , in his work _’Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’_. The categorical imperative is a deity-free version of The Golden Rule; _’faites à autrui ce que vous aimeriez qu'on vous fasse’_...et cetera.’

‘Nietzsche, historically was quite critical of Kant and his view of morals. Which is understandable when you consider the fact that Nietzsche believed that one should embrace their jealousies in order to attempt to achieve life goals. Envy, so he believed, was merely a stronger translation of ambition. Kant was different, because he believed that envy was lawless and baseless, but their parallel disregard of religion due to its inconsistencies and flaws was a shared perspective. Now that I have thoroughly bored you, I will tell you that was stuck on conundrum of free will and moral law. Specifically, on the topic of what defines free will and what defines morality; for Kant believed that they were one and the same, and that a will bound to evil deeds was one just as enslaved as a will bound to the subjugations of religion. _’But what is ‘evil’?_ I thought. _’Surely the definitions of ‘evil’ are as variant from person to person as the definitions of goodness’_.

‘And so I kissed Lestat, and then I went to look something up on the internet.’

‘Here is where his narrative is subject to the flaw of perception, because I was gone for an hour, and he makes it seem as if a few minutes have passed. This is the deadfall of immortality, because that which happens in a humanely long stretch of time does not seem long at all to us. And, so, yes, my love sat in immortal perplexity for an hour regarding my use of the internet. Here, too, is where I am very fond of him; but I am vagrant in my ramblings. I went to use the computer for one sole purpose, which I have stated above, but I ended up joining a website for those interested in discussing philosophy. I had a brief, but engaging discussion with an individual with whom I shall attempt to acquaint you with, over the course of the rest of this narrative, and they encouraged me to add them to their contacts, and so I did.’

‘A passing thing, I thought it was. Perhaps I’d return, perhaps I wouldn’t. It did not matter, over the course of the rest of the night, as Lestat has told you. I am loathe to admit to my proclivities, and I suppose it would not be enough for me to simply declare to you that I wanted him. But, really, that’s all it was. Is this not common among couples? To decide-sometimes abruptly-that you have a need, and subsequently satiate that need? Yes, we did that, I initiated it _...du coup._ What could I tell you that he does not tell you? Nothing.’

‘I am frequently bothered.’

‘This is, admittedly, a botherment of my own doing. I went out to hunt the next night because the whole theory of what I’ve discussed before, was circling ‘round my head and I couldn’t get it out. I took some pretty, young thing from a dive bar and drained her in an alleyway. Is that what you wanted to hear? I do this often. I am bitter for it, but it does not change the fact that I do it, because it was what I was made to be. I am a vampire, and I philosophize, but blood will win out over psyche in the end. And so as scarlet whetted my throat, I was again accosted with all the questions that I put upon the universe despite the fact that the universe has deigned to give me so few answers. She died. Her name was Laura, she wanted to be a newspaper columnist...but she ended up shriveled and forgotten in an alleyway. She left a spot on my collar-if I must make a reference to Shakespeare here, I really might scream-and Lestat offered me a new one...but the reason behind the spot was not so replaceable.’

‘Fatalism at its finest.’

‘He asked what I was doing, and then he did not actually want to hear it. I was not offended, but I was disinterested, and so I left him there to return to the forum. Here is where I will begin the regretful part of my story, because I do regret it. I should know better, by now, than to engage with beings impermanent, flighty, and ultimately unable to contemplate for innumerable stretches of time. But you have to understand that I did...I did enjoy the company. It was different, it was engaging, and I found some answers. Not enough, of course, to satisfy me...but enough. Our talk began as philosophy but morphed into other things, idle things...things that I had forgotten in my very, very long life. I won’t tell you her name...why does it matter? We are not the substance of our names; I am _certainly_ nothing of the etymology of mine.’

‘I didn’t lie to her.’

‘I didn’t...but I didn’t tell her the truth either. I told her my human age, the one I had been frozen into, which was not untrue and yet very untrue. I told her I guarded my identity, and she understood it...for a while. This is where the vices of modernity consumed me, for I was not honest in many other ways. It is easy...I have found, to put up a cloak online...to play a part and tell yourself that it’s for your own good. And so I told her I was in a long-term, committed relationship...which I was....but it was more than that. Likewise, I told her we had children, and this was true; Claudia was our child, and David was more Lestat’s child than mine, but-in my ignorance-I simply counted him because they were-of all of them-the vampires we were closest to for the longest time...as a couple.’

‘I didn’t use my real name; of course I didn’t. To do so would have been folly. I’m sure you can see where this descended into a facade rather quickly. But I had to. What else would I have told her? That I was a vampire? That I sometimes contacted her from a bedroom with the curtains drawn tight against the sun because I couldn’t tolerate it? That I enjoyed drinking from intellectuals such as her...with spirit...with opinions and fire...because for a few brief minutes...I could live vicariously through them? _Non_ , I could not tell her that. For one, she was a skeptic, which limited the scope to which our conversations could extend right from the beginning. And for two, I was enjoying it...I _liked_ playacting. _Quand même!_ , I’m sure Lestat, when he reads this, will fall off his chair laughing...because I did exactly as he would do...for once.’

‘What selfishness.’

‘I am sure some of you are frowning, smiling, or shaking your heads. What, did you think that I was perfect? That I am, perhaps, the _ego_ to Lestat’s _id?_ I am not. I am perfectly capable of being just as beastly as he is, I just do it with more subtlety. We are both, as he has said, _’very crazy individuals.’_ And don’t ever think, that even after hundreds of years of existence, that vampires don’t do dreadfully stupid things because they are-to put it plainly-very bored. Vampires are the most bored individuals in existence, and therefore we are the most desperate for entertainment.’

‘I think that it is possibly downgrading, to refer to humans as ‘entertainment.’ In this day and age it seems the world is terribly prone to offense despite the fact that none has been purposefully given. Let me tell you something I have done that is actually offensive; I owned dozens of slaves and I thought them my property. I did not understand it at the time, but that was horribly offensive. It was how things were done, but it should not have been.’

‘So, yes, I engaged with a mortal, human woman young enough to be my great great great great great granddaughter and I was entertained. Happily entertained, you must understand, and I would hope that she was as well. That is the crux of interaction you see; interest. Thusly, this translates to entertainment. And yes, that entertainment morphed into something of love...but it was a painful love. Something distant...something terribly strange. It is easy to love, it is not easy to conscience that love.’

‘And Lestat was jealous.’

‘He was jealous...but he was good to me about it. I am, frankly, shocked that he was so good to me. We argued, and when we argued I took it to her, and she sympathized; but the truth of it is that Lestat is-ultimately-the hero in this tale. He was patient with me...patient in ways that I did not comprehend until afterwards. And I have had interests before her...but none of them were so different from the interactions I’d had before. I think it was perhaps the fact that we spoke more than we did anything else. My maker was aware of this...he was intimately aware of this, and so he let me be...as much as he was able.’

‘I considered the Turn.’

‘I am ashamed to say this now...but I did. Because I did want her with me...forever...for a time. But as with all things that belong to the march of chronology...I discovered that it was not meant to be; and I will tell you why. She had a family. That was enough to give me pause in the first place. But when I began to push harder for her to comprehend the philosophical and artistic capabilities I knew she was capable of, she withdrew. And yes, she did have things, as Lestat has said, that she had to attend to. I was bitter for it...terribly bitter. It’s a hypocrisy, I know. I have all the time in the world...but I was impatient with her. It is easy to be impatient with humans, and the more impatient I became, the more harshly I spoke.’

‘It descended into something I can’t define...only I couldn’t communicate the fatalism of it properly to her. I was trying to prepare her, you see, for the Turn...at the point of her egress. But, as Lestat has also said, you cannot _fully_ prepare someone for the Turn. Especially when you’ve told them nothing of what you truly are. These talks...you see. I’d formulated them to encompass the scope of absolutely everything; of religion and history, of philosophy, of science and evolution. I wanted her to comprehend them...on an unbiased scope because it is _necessary_ to live somewhat without bias-even if you cannot do it totally-as an immortal. The alternative is wishing for what once was...when all the years have passed. I wanted to initiate that separation very early. I was going to do it correctly...this time, or so I told myself.’

‘I wouldn’t say that it went sour.’

‘Lestat’s comparison doesn’t do it justice...really. I would say that it perhaps faded...like a flower pressed between the pages of a book. I realized, at some point, the terrible error of my endeavors. I do not think she would have handled the Change well ...and I say that without cruelty or judgement. I didn’t handle the Change well; no one does. But I think she would have done it more poorly than I because she didn’t truly know anything about me. When I came to Lestat...in the garden...I was beginning to realize it...the folly of my dishonesty. But I couldn’t be honest with her, don’t you see? I couldn’t, not at the detriment of our safety. And like Lestat…I was not willing to risk that...not for her.’

‘He is right...again, in saying that I pulled away because of love.’

‘I did, in fact...love her too much. Too strongly. It was a practice of rediscovery, of redefinition of myself. _Monsieur_ comments on this smugly...as if he won me...but he never lost me. I loved him...even through it all. If I had brought her over, I wouldn’t have left with her, and I think that would have been a point of contention as well. Master and fledgling and fledgling’s fledgling in the same house. I don’t think she’d have liked it. We talked of sharing, him and I...but there are none...and there will be none...that come before Lestat. I will always hold him close...on a pedestal...because I cannot help it. And he is cruel, but his heart...his heart is always open. Maybe it is open for me, and only for me. I think most don’t, and won’t, understand that. How I can love someone who has treated me poorly.’

‘But I have treated him poorly too.’

‘Our talks became stilted...dark...melancholy on my part. ...Further the void...further the gap...and then nothing. We were very different, and I am glad that I did not discover that too late. Understand, I beg you, that there was nothing in her character that was lacking. She was strong...she had a strong will, and she was witty and humorous...though I doubt she knew it herself. There were many, many, _many_ good qualities within her that I cannot go into because I do not wish to make this too personal. But those good qualities stacked against my bad qualities were dim; and that was my shortcoming.’

‘Here Lestat talks of the fire...of the things he knows now.’

‘I do love him...for his growth. But I love him for who he was as well; the vivacious, ridiculous creature that snatched me from life and into unlife. If I told you that seeing him burn was easy...I would be lying. It was, singularly, the most painful and terrible thing I have ever witnessed. I regret it. And I may not have been able to see him...as he saw me...that fateful night we met...so long ago...but I know I thought him grand. Ever have I thought him grand. Ever have I loved Lestat de Lioncourt...honestly, desperately...atrociously. I was never above him...mentally. Here he sells himself short as well...because Lestat is clever like a fox...but he’ll never let you know it. It makes me laugh...a little bit; in that way that’s a bit sharp in the chest. So very clever… _mon amour_.’

‘And so it became a memory.’

‘A memory among thousands of memories; no less beautiful, no less cherished. And Lestat...he is here. Lestat waited. I will never discount his patience for me during that time...because he was patient. So here is where I will state my counterpoint; it was not a fascination...it was a love. A love of something corporeal perhaps...but still love. And when I come to him...when I come to my Maker and he looks at me...with his reflective eyes...his sad eyes...I know. I know what I have done to him...and he knows what he has done to me.’

‘I do not care what you think.’

‘Perhaps it seems a contraindication, to say all of this...and then to say I do not care, but I do not. I am not like Lestat. I have done my suffering for the sake of humanity, perhaps too much of it. Understand that I have done my years of waiting for him, because I did wait. I waited for him after the concert...I waited for him when he slept, and then I waited for him until I could not wait for him anymore...and I chose the sun. So I was not going to wait for a little girl to grow up, because she was never going to grow enough that we would, ultimately, be equals in death. That was a painful realization, but it doesn’t make it less veritable.’

‘If you are looking for your truth, it is thus;’

‘When you have enough years behind you, you will understand that your perspective is something apart from those who follow you. And yes, as Lestat has said, we do see you. And sometimes, yes, we will love you...but we cannot love you in a way that makes sense to you ...because there is too much time between us. That is not your fault, but we cannot control it either. We see you through a veil that is perhaps thinner than it ought to be sometimes...we get too close.’

‘There is...indeed... too much worth in the world to know what to do with it.’

‘But at the end of the night...when the deathsleep comes...and the dawn draws dangerously close...he comes to me. _Mon coeur_ comes to me where I lay...often asleep long before him. Quiet...slow and the bed will dip, and his hands will be cool upon me as he slips under the covers beside me and draws me close. I will feel his lips at the back of my neck, briefly; the rush of air over the nape before he puts his mouth to the shell of my ear and whispers love...and it does not matter what he says...only that it is said. We are...as we have always been...for eternity.’

‘And believe me when I say that eternity is much, much longer than you would think.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Notes:** This took me forever to write. I'm unsure of Louis's voice, and I feel like this doesn't really... _clarify_ too much?? Just that I wanted to write Louis? And so I did.
> 
> -The use of 'monsieur' to refer to Lestat is absolutely inspired. [By Gulfport. Go read it @_@]

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** Oh hey look I said I wouldn't get into this fandom again but shoot me. And with a monstrosity like this I feel like I need to apologize but I won't.
> 
> Edited because grammar and _apparently_ not enough detail.


End file.
